Blogging Tip: Simplicity Is Essential

Big corporations pay big bucks for consultants to come in and help them analyze their business, trying to find ways to increase their profits. Often, this process has nothing to do with increasing sales but more with eliminating waste – wasted time and wasted energy which, in the business world equals wasted money. These analysts operate using the K.I.S.S. Principle, a principle that applies to any business. But simplicity is particularly essential for blogging if you want your business to grow.

Part of the appeal of blogging is the ability to work from home, on your own schedule, with no one looking over your shoulder. But that appealing quality is also one of blogging’s major drawbacks. You have no one to turn to for help when work starts piling up and no one to turn to for advice when you have a major decision you need to make. Consequently, many bloggers get caught up in the minutiae and never manage to advance their business to the next level.

Keep It Simple Stupid. As the K.I.S.S. Principle implies, and as those corporate consultants confirm, more often than not the simple solution is always the best way to go.

Just take a tour through your favorite fast-food or chain restaurant. Tour a neighboring factory. Heck, reach back in history and take a look at Henry Ford’s first automobile manufacturing plant. The assembly line is a perfect example of the K.I.S.S. Principle in action. No movements are wasted, no time is wasted, and production never stops. And even though these assembly lines all run like clock-work these corporations keep these consultants on hand because they realize there’s always going to be a simpler, more cost-effective way to do everything.

If the K.I.S.S. Principle is good enough for corporations like McDonald’s, Pepsi and Ford, it only makes sense that it would work for your business, too. But you need to apply it in two separate areas of your business:

Simplify tasks for yourself

If you’ve already built up the traffic then it’s more important that you have a landing page on your site than it is that you have a professionally designed opt-in form on that landing page. Any opt-in form will do and you’re only wasting time by trying to come up with the most beautiful opt-in form in the history of blogging. K.I.S.S. and get a form on that page now so you can start building your list.

That’s just one example but you can see how the K.I.S.S. Principle applies to blogging. We get so caught up in trying to build the perfect blog, trying to come up with exactly the right font, trying to be perfect at this and perfect at that, that we miss out on opportunities. Forget about perfection. Keep it simple and launch that blog.

Simplify content for your readers

Landing page not converting? Not getting any bites on your squeeze page? You need to keep it simple for your readers, too.

When you’re working online your most basic task is to make it easy (simple) for the reader to complete your call to action or click that Buy It Now button and make a purchase. This is how you should approach every aspect of your blog. Every bit of content, whether it’s textual content, images, buttons or banners, should be looked at as either part of the reader’s path to purchase or an obstacle in their way that’s going to prevent them from completing your call to action.

In some cases a long, wordy landing page is a must – it addresses all of those obstacles and moves them out of the way. However, if you’re not getting conversions then perhaps it’s because you’ve included too much unnecessary information that’s only acting as an obstacle. A longer, more complicated sales page isn’t always the best answer. Simplify your landing pages to make it easier for your readers to get from Point A to Point B.

Great tip! As a fairly new Blogger, I have been caught up with the “perfectionism” that many bloggers go through. I have to stop comparing my blog to so & so’s blog and reach my personal best. Thanks for the tip & a reality check!! ;)